1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to the collection and provisioning of consumer data in compliance with government regulations, where the collection is performed without compromising consumer privacy and security, and the data is provided to entities that have an interest in using the data for delivering targeted advertisements and promotional campaigns to consumers.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Consumer data, that is data collected by a network connected appliance as a result of a consumer's use of the appliance, is being provided to a wide range of entities for the purpose of delivering targeted advertisements and promotional campaigns to consumers, along with news, multimedia entertainment content, and searched for information. Such collected data may include the consumer's product interests, preferences, network browsing history, physical location and personal data, and such entities may include publishers, advertisers, media agencies, Data Management Platforms (DMPs), Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) and Supply Side Platforms (SSPs). The appliance used for delivering such targeted advertisements is often the same appliance that is employed to collect the consumer's data. Since the collection of this data is carried out, in many cases, without the consumer's knowledge or consent, the entity collecting such data is often accused of compromising the consumer's privacy and security. Therefore, this practice has caught the attention of lawmakers around the world, especially in the 30 states of the European Economic Area, the United States, Australia and South Korea, and has led to legislation directed to controlling the collection, secure use, and storage of consumer data. Although there can be a high economic cost associated with violating these laws, due to an increasing number of strict regulations with harsh penalties being enacted, and there is significant consumer opposition to the unauthorized use and sharing of consumer data, a large number of organizations have chosen to work toward complying with the often conflicting government regulations, instead of discontinuing the practice of collecting consumer data. This course of action has, in many cases, been chosen because collected consumer data provides much of the business intelligence needed to achieve the organization's business objectives and advertising goals. These organizations are therefore working towards incorporating meaningful data security and privacy policies into their everyday operations.
However, due to the many entities currently participating in each online advertising transaction that employ and share appliance user consumer data, attempting to comply with government regulations is problematic. FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate why this is so. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the entities participating in an example online advertising transaction, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an example online advertising transaction between the entities depicted in FIG. 1. In the following discussion, all reference numbers between 100 and 199 designate elements of FIG. 1 and all reference numbers between 200 and 299 designate elements of FIG. 2. As can be seen from FIG. 1, participating entities can include: Advertiser 105, Media Agency 110, Demand Side Platform (DSP) 115, Data Management Platform (DMP) 120, Supply Side Platform (SSP) 125, Ad Exchange 130, Content Delivery Network 135, Publisher 140, Data Sources 150, and Network Connected Appliance 145. Consumer data collected by Network Connected Appliance 145 as a result of a consumer's use of the appliance, tracks many aspects of the appliance user's online behavior. This data is communicated over line 139 of FIG. 1 to Data Sources 150, where it is often augmented with additional specific real world appliance user data collected by the entities that comprise Data Sources 150. Such entities include data services that collect and amass offline (real world) consumer data, consumer demographics, and web analytics, in addition to data services that collect and amass online consumer data. Such data services can include credit card suppliers, financial institutions, credit scoring agencies, social networking sites, gaming sites, online e-tailers, brick and mortar department stores, energy companies, utilities and super markets, among many others. DMP 120 receives consumer data over line 127 from Data Sources 150, and provides raw and processed versions of the data to Advertiser 105, Media Agency 110, DSP 115, SSP 125, and Publisher 140. over lines 111, 113, 109, 123, and 153 respectively.
In Block 200 of FIG. 2, the Advertiser 105 of FIG. 1 initiates an online advertising campaign based on the advertiser's objectives using data obtained from DMP 120. In Block 202, Media agency 110 creates the advertising campaign in response to Advertiser 105's stated objectives, utilizing data from DMP 120. In Block 204 Supply Side Platform (SSP) 125 determines audience reach of publishers on their platform using data from Publisher 140 and DMP 120, and obtains ad space availability, along with the specifications of the ad space, from publishers. These specifications may include the size of the available ad space, the location of the ad space with respect to other web page elements, and the content being published in the space located adjacent to and surrounding the available ad space, among others. In the example of FIGS. 1 and 2 this information is communicated to DSP 115 through DMP 120. Going through DMP 120 provides the opportunity for DMP-120 to augment the information with processed data and data from Data Sources 150 before it is communicated to DSP 115. Such processed data may include an analysis of consumer data collected from appliance users who have previously visited the publisher's website, an analysis of the demographics of the audience usually served by the publisher, an analysis of the possible affect on the advertiser's brand by the content in close proximity to the location of the available ad space, and an analysis of how advertising content and content layout can be optimized for effectiveness in the available ad space. In Block 206 DSP 115 determines an appropriate advertising campaign publisher utilizing the ad campaign received from Media Agency 110, and data from DMP 120. In Block 208 Ad Exchange 130 manages negotiations between DSP 115 and SSP 125 for the buying of ad space from a publisher on the SSP. At the conclusion of negotiations, DSP 115 selects a publisher to publish the ad campaign. In the example of FIGS. 1 and 2 Publisher 140 is selected. DSP 115 then delivers the ad campaign to Ad Exchange 130, Ad Exchange 130 delivers the ad campaign to Content Delivery Network 135 and Publisher 140 delivers the available ad space to Content Delivery Network 135, as shown in Block 210. In Block 212 Content Delivery Network combines the ad campaign from Ad Exchange 130 with the ad space from Publisher 140 and delivers the result to Publisher 140. The combined ad campaign and ad space is then published by Publisher 140 to the Web in Block 214 and the appliance user views the web published ad campaign on Network Connected Appliance 145 in Block 216.
In the above example at least 5 different entities receive the consumer data collected by Network Connected Appliance 145. These entities include: DMP 120, Advertiser 105, DSP 115, SSP 125 and Publisher 140. In addition, the entities that comprise Data Sources 150, entities that collect and supply consumer data from both a consumer's use of their network connected appliance and from real world consumer activities, have access to the consumer data they collect. It is therefore clear that there exists a need for a secure consumer data collection and provisioning approach that allows organizations to obtain the consumer data derived business intelligence they require, while simultaneously facilitating simple, easy to implement, easy to maintain, and low cost compliance with evolving government legislation and regulations.